Amanda Knox's former boyfriend planned new life in Switzerland

Amanda Knox's former boyfriend was so confident that their acquittals for the
murder of Meredith Kercher would be upheld by Italy's highest court that he
had his bags packed and was planning to move to Switzerland to start a
business.

Raffaele Sollecito was planning to start up an internet security firmPhoto: EMPICS

Raffaele Sollecito was planning to spend Easter with his family in Bari, on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy, and then move to Lugano in Switzerland to start up an internet security firm, it was claimed on Wednesday.

But his plans have been thrown into disarray after the Supreme Court in Rome ruled that he and Miss Knox, 25, must face a retrial for their alleged roles in the murder of Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon in Surrey.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito during the trial in Perugia

Due to start next year, it will be their third trial, after an initial, year-long trial led to their convictions, and then a second in an appeals court led to their acquittals.

"We weren't expecting a negative outcome", Mr Sollecito told a lecturer at Verona University, where he is studying information technology and robotics, according to Corriere della Sera newspaper. "I was thinking everything would be cleared up."

The lecturer, Prof Roberto Segala, has been a mentor to Mr Sollecito, and gave him the idea of starting up the company in Lugano, which is part of the southern, Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, according to the newspaper.

The court's decision was the latest dramatic twist in a murder mystery that has attracted intense scrutiny in Italy, Britain and the US for six years, ever since Kercher was found stabbed to death in the house she shared with Miss Knox in Perugia, Umbria, in Nov 2007.

Mr Sollecito, whose 29th birthday celebrations on Tuesday were ruined by the supreme court's decision, denied suggestions that he was still contemplating fleeing to Switzerland in order to avoid the retrial.

"Switzerland would hardly be a good country to flee to, it's not Brazil," he reportedly told a friend, pointing out that it was close to Italy and had an extradition treaty with Rome.

In anticipation of his Swiss venture, Mr Sollecito had donated to the university library a copy of the book he wrote about being caught up in the murder investigation.

"Honour Bound – My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox" was published late last year.

In it, recounts how his recollection of the night of Kercher's murder was hazy because he had smoked marijuana.

He chastises himself for having smoked so much of the drug that he could not give detectives a coherent account of what he and Miss Knox, who he had met just a week before, had been doing that night.

"My poor memory seemed a ridiculous reason to throw me into an isolation cell and accuse me of involvement in the crime," he writes in the book.

He acknowledges in the book that he and his new girlfriend had "no real alibi the night of Nov 1 except each other." He and Miss Knox were found guilty of sexual assault and murder at a trial in Perugia in 2009 and sentenced to 25 years and 26 years respectively.

But they appealed and had their convictions overturned by an appeal court in Perugia in 2011 after a judge and jury ruled that the proof against them was insufficient and the DNA evidence contaminated.